Question

One of classes in my program uses some third-party library. Library object is a private member of my class:

// My.h     #include <3pheader.h>      class My      {     ...     private:        3pObject m_object;     } 

The problem with this – any other unit in my program that uses My class should be configured to include 3p headers. Moving to another kind of 3p will jeopardize the whole build… I see two ways to fix this – one is to is to make 3pObject extern and turn m_Object into a pointer, being initialized in constructor; second is to create an ‘interface’ and ‘factory’ classes and export them…

Could you suggest another ways to solve that ?

Answer 1

Use the ‘pimpl’ idiom:

// header class My {   class impl;   std::auto_ptr<impl> _impl; };  // cpp #include <3pheader.h> class My::impl {   3pObject _object; };